Likewise, their later luminary (1), Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—some of his companions gathered his legal opinions into thirty volumes, copies of which I examined in Egypt.
These, then, are the writings of the Imams of Islam—so numerous that none but Allah can tally them. Every one of those scholars, from the first to the last, attests to the Companions’ knowledge and merit, and acknowledges that his own learning, when compared with theirs, is as theirs is beside the knowledge of their Prophet.
In al-Thaqafiyyāt it is narrated: Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd told us, from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Maʿāfirī, from his father, that Kaʿb once saw a Jewish rabbi weeping.
Kaʿb asked, “What makes you weep?”
He replied, “I have remembered something.”
Kaʿb said, “I adjure you by Allah—if I tell you what has made you weep, will you speak the truth?”
He answered, “Yes.”
Kaʿb said, “I adjure you by Allah: do you find in the revealed Book of Allah that Moses looked into the Torah and said, ‘My Lord, I find the best community ever raised for mankind—they enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, believe in the first Book and the last Book, and fight the people of misguidance until they confront the one-eyed Dajjāl. So make them my community.’ And He said, ‘They are the community of Aḥmad, O Moses’?”
The rabbi replied, “Yes.”
Kaʿb then said, “I adjure you by Allah: do you find in the revealed Book of Allah that Moses looked into the Torah and said, ‘My Lord, I find a nation who are abundant in praise—guardians of the sun—discerning; whenever they intend a matter they say, “We shall do it, if Allah wills.” So make them my community.’ And He said, ‘They are the community of Aḥmad, O Moses’?” The rabbi answered, “Yes.”
Kaʿb said, “I adjure you by Allah: do you find in the revealed Book of Allah that Moses looked into the Torah and said, ‘My Lord, I find a nation such that when one of them ascends a height he proclaims the takbīr, and when he descends he praises Allah; the earth is their purification, and the land is a mosque for them wherever—”